Tag Archives: fda

Wouldn't it be nice if U.S. border agents did an equally amazing job catching terrorists, drug smugglers, and those criminal elements hell-bent on illegally infiltrating our nation's porous borders?

Just when you thought catching terrorists, drug smugglers and illegal alien invaders were among the top priorities of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, there comes news from the Canadian border that agents have also been tasked with confiscating kids’ contraband candy.

Linda Bird, a Canadian woman who recently attempted enter the U.S., was stunned when CBP agents seized a $2 chocolate egg that has been deemed a “choking hazard” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The confection marketed towards children is commonly know across the globe as a “Kinder Surprise,” and contains a small toy safely embedded inside a chocolate covered plastic shell.

Canadian health officials have repeatedly said they are not concerned about the potential for youngsters to choke on the tiny toys hidden inside the eggs because the plastic shells are difficult for children of any age to open, especially toddlers that simply do not have the manual dexterity required.

Across the border in the Nanny States of America, the FDA and CBP remain committed to ensuring that contraband candy eggs never infiltrate our nation’s northern border and needlessly put a single American child’s life at risk.

“The U.S. takes catching illegal Kinder candy seriously, judging by the number of them they’ve confiscated in the last year,” reports the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). “Officials said they’ve seized more than 25,000 of the treats in 2,000 separate seizures.”

International confectioner, Ferrero, introduced the Kinder Surprise in 1974, and since then, more than 30 billion eggs have safely been devoured by children across the globe. In fact, Ferrero notes on its website that it has taken extra precautions to ensure that “Kinder Surprise toys are designed and developed with safety in mind, rigorously observing international regulations as well as extra safety criteria voluntarily adopted by the Ferrero Group.”

Despite a thriving global market for a seemingly innocent and safe confection that has yet to be threatened with extinction by a frivolous class action lawsuit in any nation, the Kinder Surprise remains on the CBP’s list of items that, if found being smuggled in to the U.S., could result in a $300 fine and legal headaches.

Accused Kinder Surprise ‘smuggler,’ Bird, said she recently received a “seven-page letter” from the U.S. government asking her to “formally authorize the destruction of her seized Kinder egg” or pay $250 for it to be put in storage while legal matters are pursued.

“I thought it was a joke,” Bird said. “I had to read it twice. But they are serious.”

Do you support CBP’s silent crackdown on contraband candy or prefer they stick to performing the agency’s “priority mission of keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S.?”

Anyone else think it’s odd that The Huffington Post finds humor in a comedian’s rant against government intrusion in citizens’ lives? In and of itself, that’s funny enough, but watch Lewis Black systematically dismantle the nanny state with his sarcasm and wit if your pants are still dry.

Overlawyered.com’s Walter Olsen hits another one out of the ballpark today with his commentary in The Washington Times spotlighting the “growing aggressiveness of ‘public health’ officialdom in pushing scare campaigns about everyday consumption risks:”

The Puritans held that reminders of mortality had an edifying effect on the living, which is why they sometimes would illustrate even literature for young children with drawings of death’s-heads and skeletons. Something of the same spirit seems to animate our ever-advancing movement for mandatory public health. The Food and Drug Administration has just floated the idea of requiring cigarette packs to carry rotating pictures that would include corpses – yes, actual corpses – as well as close-ups of grotesque medical disorders that can afflict smokers.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s superactivist Health Department has begun public ad campaigns about the health risks of everyday foods, including a controversial YouTube video portraying soda drinkers as pouring globs of shimmery yellow fat into their open mouths and – just out – an ad showing an innocent-looking can of chicken-with-rice soup as bursting with dangerous salt. Whether or not you live in New York, you’re likely to be seeing more of this sort of thing because the mayor’s crew tends to set the pace for activist public-health efforts nationwide; the Obama administration, for example, picked Bloomberg lieutenant Thomas R. Frieden to head the influential Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why should government use our own tax dollars to propagandize and hector us about the risks of salted snacks, chocolate milk or the other temptations of today’s supermarket aisle? The Bloomberg-Obama camp seems to feel that government dietary advice is superior to other sources of information we might draw on because (1) it’s more objective, independent and pure of motive and (2) it can draw on better science …

Video brought to you by the Tenth Amendment Center. Here’s an introduction to their synopsis of the video (read more on video’s YouTube description):

Many of us, after years of indoctrination at our government schools, were left with a sense that there is a great government force working hard every day to protect us and look after our best interest. We were told that government standards keep us safe from disease, that government highway regulations keep us safe from car accidents, that federal agencies make sure that the food we eat will be healthy.

The result of all of this? Americans everywhere drive more carelessly, do not research what they put on their plate and take medications that leave them sicker, rather than healthier …

"I don't have time to go to the doctor to get a prescription for cough medicine. Do you?"

Thanks to a bunch of idiotic teenagers who chug copious amounts of cough medicine to get high, the FDA is considering new restrictions on Robitussin, NyQuil and more than 100 other over-the-counter (OTC) cough suppressants. If you’re one of the millions of responsible adults who seek convenient cough relief in a bottle, a doctor’s prescription might be required this coming cold and flu season.

Dextromethorphan, an ingredient found in OTC cough medicines is popular among teenagers seeking to get high without purchasing illegal drugs. Apparently, every year there are a few thousand young dopes who wind-up in the hospital after they’ve consumed 25 times the recommended dose of cough syrup, so it’s looking like you’re going to start paying for their stupidity.

Whether it’s requiring a prescription from a doctor or showing your driver’s license to the pharmacist — all so you can purchase otherwise harmless cough medicine legally — the FDA believes it’s best to treat everyone, including grandma, as potential drug abusers.

“On Sept. 14, the FDA will ask a panel of outside experts whether dextromethorphan should be available only as a prescription,” The Associated Press reports. “The agency is not required to follow the group’s advice, though it often does.”

Tired of big government treating you like an irresponsible child incapable of making your own decisions and acting without clenching its helping hand? Join the Nanny State Liberation Front on Facebook and fight to restore your freedom and independence before it’s too late.

Sensationalizing the so-called egg ‘crisis’ that has caused less than a half of one percent of Americans to experience temporary bouts of indigestion and diarrhea, radical animal ‘rights’ group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is urging Iowa’s governor to permanently ban eggs from public school cafeterias.

As can be expected from PETA, the salmonella issue at hand is not what has prompted the organization to whore itself in the media yet again — it’s just a vehicle to promote PETA’s anti-meat, pro-vegan agenda. The public’s health is of not what concerns PETA as much as saving chickens and their eggs from being served as food.

“In addition to being one of the leading causes of food poisoning, eggs are cholesterol bombs, increasing the risk of suffering from clogged arteries and heart disease later in life,” states PETA’s letter to Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D). “In addition, children like animals and despise cruelty. They would be upset to learn that hens used for their eggs are among the most abused animals on Earth.”

PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman penned the letter to Culver citing that she is a “mother herself” and that’s part of the reason why she’s concerned about making sure school children do not contract salmonella from eggs in cafeterias. If protecting school kids was truly her motivation then, perhaps, this ‘Mother of the Year’ candidate would have made the plea to all of the nation’s governors as opposed to targeting the one in the state where salmonella outbreak is assumed to have arisen.

“Schools have a duty to protect our kids,” Reiman says. “By tossing eggs out of the diets of Iowa schoolchildren, Governor Culver can reduce their risk of illness while also teaching them an important lesson about being kind to animals.”

Speaking of “being kind” to living creatures, PETA should consider that approach with regards to how it respects corporations’ right to free enterprise within our democratic nation. The organization has gone on the record wishing death and destruction to agricultural industries, restaurants, and scientific laboratories because their animals are their business to slaughter, cook, serve, and dissect.

PETA has a 'death wish' for businesses and science labs that don't adhere to the organization's radical animal 'rights' agenda. Learn the truth about PETA at petakillsanimals.com.

The Center for Consumer Freedom cites PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich on July 3, 2001 stating in an audio recording, “It would be great if all the fast-food outlets, slaughter houses, these laboratories and the banks who fund them exploded tomorrow.”

PETA is not interested in saving human lives, much less protecting the public health from a bad case of the runs caused by some ‘rotten’ eggs. Their agenda and rhetoric are clear, reports a profile of the organization on ActivistCash.com:

PETA seeks “total animal liberation,” according to its president and co-founder, Ingrid Newkirk. That means no meat or dairy, of course; but it also means no aquariums, no circuses, no hunting or fishing, no fur or leather, and no medical research using animals. PETA is even opposed to the use of seeing-eye dogs.

Contact Gov. Chet Culver and tell him to stand firm against publicity attempts by PETA to propagandize the so-called egg ‘crisis’ so they can advance their anti-meat agenda in his state. Countless poultry farmers in Iowa that provide schools with eggs to make everything from omelets to brownies are cannot afford for Culver to cave to this radical special interest group.

Less than half of a percent of American citizens have reportedly fallen ill due to a salmonella outbreak caused by ‘rotten’ eggs. Following a predictable pattern we’ve come to assume from the Obama Administration, they’re definitely not going to let this minor “crisis” go to waste.

CNN reports today that America is currently experiencing an “egg crisis,” encouraging stepped-up efforts by the federal government to crackdown on “risky food suppliers in the United States and abroad.” This headline news story comes in wake of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Margaret Hamburg declaring yesterday, “We need better abilities and authorities to put in place these preventive controls and hold companies accountable.”

Does any of this terminology sound familiar? It should, because it’s another “crisis” the federal government and its cronies in the State-Run Media have created to convince American citizens that irresponsible businesses must be held “accountable” aka ‘over-regulated.’ Since President Obama has been in office, we’ve seen with the same tactics used to bring “fat cat” Wall Street bankers, health insurers, Detroit automobile manufacturers, British Petroleum, Toyota, and now, farms producing eggs, to their knees.

Right now, a supposedly “bi-partisan” Senate is working to pass the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) and the current “egg crisis” is just the vehicle to stir-up public hysteria so it will be permanently enacted, and swiftly, as to avoid another non-lethal outbreak that temporarily causes severe diarrhea in 1,300 out of 310,073,946 American citizens.

Just playing with the numbers in this current crisis, let’s assume that these 1,300 salmonella victims at 2 eggs apiece. That would mean 2,600 eggs were potentially tainted. More than 550 million eggs were recalled without the Food Safety law even in place.

After the Food Safety bill becomes law, just imagine what sort of ‘regulatory’ measures will be taken by the FDA when it is empowered to call the shots and potentially shut-down farmers across the nation if another minor egg “crisis” occurs or head of lettuce allegedly causes someone to vomit. Small and family farms will be brought to a grinding halt and potentially forced out of business by whatever regulatory remedy the feds force upon them.

As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel is fond of saying, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And, what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

How does this sound, Rahm? Let’s create a fake crisis, heck, let’s hit ’em with a swarm of crises (Whoa, looks like you’ve already done that. Our bad!) to win the public’s support for the nationalization of corporations, just like the dictators of every failed Socialist regime promised would bring a new era of stability and prosperity to the masses who had lost all hope in themselves and their governments.